In reply to your query, he has 4 attacking players in his lineup. Football is about balance between attack and defence, without both you cannot be consistent. Playing a striker in front of a CAM and 2 wingers leaves a larger gap between the defensive lines than our current setup. We have the back 4, with a CM screening them, 1 CM further forwards and moving out wide to support the wings and in front of that you have the front 3, dropping deep and working hard to win the ball back. However if you move that front 3 further forwards you lose the effective tracking back and the ability to squeeze the opposition out of possession between these 2 defensive lines. On top of this, you will have only 1 CM to screen the back 4, meaning a much higher workrate and fatigue level for that player and you also make it much more difficult to play the rapid short passing game which has been so key to our success

The problem is I've been behind the scenes and know of so much internal goings on that I don't feel I could be a regular user again, not while knowing what lies beneath. People would be amazed at the amount done by myself and a few others that they will never know about, in order to improve the site. The other issue is the sheer amount of people on this site that I've had to deal with, if I lost my status I'm quite certain a number of trolls would be hostile towards me and that's something that I'm not scared of but I simply cannot be bothered with. So if I left, I'd leave completely

Ardak (Arsenal) 19 hours ago Dude, f**k off. I watched the entire game. You're saying that offside calls were by a clear margin. Where the f**k is a clear margin? Do you know the definition of clear? Obvious? I guess I should ask which GAME DID YOU watch?

A sensible response. I know you're not a gloryhunter mate, they're easy to spot. Obviously as a mod I have the forums best interests in mind as I don't want to see fans of other teams trolling us if we lost, after a few fans have blown our trumpet a bit in the match lead up. But it's just a better idea to get behind the lads the whole time I reckon. Sure I get frustrated and I raged to Cloudst on facebook about qualifying 2nd but I got over it pretty quick. I just find in general, it's best to rage in private to mates and project a positive outlook on the forums. The end of the day I still went to work, had pretty much the same day I would've had if we'd won or lost and life goes on.

Cheers for the rational reply and congrats also on converting your wife, no easy task

Here's hoping for a good win against a very impressive at home, City side. A draw would be a great result all things considered. But to be honest, if we continue to hammer the midtable teams the way we have been, it won't matter if we lose to United, City and Chelsea as they're all too busy dropping points to lower teams to really challenge us. If City get their away form sorted they could be a threat but atm everything is going our way, even if we lose to both City and Chelsea.

Cheers for the nice words mate It's the curse of being a mod I'm afraid. Before I became one I had around 25 rude votes. Each of the bad trolls I remove(not the mildly irritating ones) tends to make sure they give me 2 rude votes as their form of petty revenge. Magneto got to the point of encouraging them to do so lol, so I wear those rude votes like a badge of honour and thank them each time they do it Nothing gets under a trolls skin more than me being extra polite to them as they're banned